


Palidor

by Wallwalker



Category: Final Fantasy VI
Genre: F/M, Mid-Canon, Rare Pairings, World of Ruin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-16
Updated: 2013-08-16
Packaged: 2017-12-23 17:27:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/929164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wallwalker/pseuds/Wallwalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Celes brings Setzer to visit Cid with her after they find the Falcon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Palidor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lirillith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirillith/gifts).



Family visits were always an awkward necessity, brief but painful. That was Setzer's experience, at least, and it seemed that this was not an exception.

He stood against the wall of the tiny shack, staring at the open doorway. He had come to this tiny island with Celes, and she had just walked away. "Excuse me," she had said. "I need to be alone." And before that, with the dishes barely cleared from the tiny table, she had looked Cid in the eyes, and had come as close as he had ever heard her come to begging. 

_"Come with us, Granddad,"_ she'd said.

And Cid had looked her in the eyes, smiled sadly, and then said, " _No._ "

The visit had been going well enough before then - Cid had been in good spirits, and at least happy to see his granddaughter. And she hadn't told him what she'd planned to do, only that she wanted to see him again, share a decent meal with him. He'd had no expectation that things would come to this. He'd been caught completely off-guard. 

He was ready to follow her through that door when Cid spoke. "Don't trouble her," he said. "Let her be alone for a while. She'll be all right."

"Will she?" Setzer stared after her a moment longer.

"I'm sure she will. Celes is not used to being denied anything, especially from me. She just needs some time to think." He chuckled ruefully, voice still rusty with disuse. "She's almost impossible to keep up with if she doesn't want you to catch her, anyway. Even for the disgraced _Conte di Allabrochio,_ yes?" 

He raised an eyebrow. "There's a title I haven't heard in a long time."

"No one recognizes you, I suppose?"

"A few people do," he admitted, "despite my best efforts."

Cid chuckled. "I was only a junior researcher when I first saw your father. He was a good man, I thought. Not a great judge of character, but if any of us had been, things might have happened very differently."

"We can't be sure of that." Setzer cleared his throat. "I know my father made mistakes. Hell, I made mistakes. But I was already out of his favor when Gestahl seized his land -"

"Oh, relax. I'm not trying to hold you responsible for ancient history." Either Cid had a hell of an eye for tells, or Setzer's poker face wasn't what it used to be. "Anyway, I asked you a question. Can you keep up with her?"

His gaze flickered back to the door, where Celes had stomped out. "So far," he sad. "She sets a difficult pace to follow."

"So I'm told. She said that many of her soldiers wouldn't even try to follow her pace, when she lead them."

He smiled. "I have the advantage, then. I'm no soldier."

"Neither am I. But for all it's worth, I'm glad that you're following her. I'm very grateful that she's not alone out - ugh!" He coughed, and for a moment Setzer worried, because Cid coughed like the old men he'd known, the ones who cheated death for a few more moments of life. But then he recovered. "Oh, this air. I should wear a mask!"

"You should, at the very least," Setzer answered, reaching into a pocket for a handkerchief, until he saw Cid waving it away. "I can see why she was worried for you. Won't you reconsider leaving with us?"

He smiled ruefully. "What'll I do if I go back there? Celes doesn't understand. I gave her everything I had, gave her my entire life. The only reason I'm still standing here is because she was too stubborn to let me die, so now what do I do?"

Setzer couldn't help but shudder a bit as Cid spoke. "Well, I'm sure you can guess at the obvious answer," he said coolly.

"And what would that be?"

"You live. You find something to do and you do it. You don't just disappear." 

"Well," Cid said, "that's a lofty goal. Did you have something more specific in mind?" 

"As a matter of fact," he said quickly, before he could change his mind, "I do. When we finish this, I hope you'll reconsider coming back to the mainland with us. Edgar and I have been discussing some plans to use our technological expertise, and help ease some of the damage that Kefka has caused. I'd be honored to have you be a part of it."

"Would you?" He smiled crookedly, although his eyes were sad and tired. "The last grand design that I was a part of ended very differently." 

"I know." Setzer smiled thinly. "But perhaps with your experience, we would not repeat the same mistakes that Gestahl made." If the plan ever came together at all, he thought wryly. At the moment it was little more than him and Edgar discussing ideas of what to do after Kefka's defeat while the two stood watch at night. Still, it was a plan for the future, and he very much intended to make it into a reality, if he possibly could. The world needed more ideas for its future.

"Hmph," Cid grunted. "So much of history is mistakes." Still, Setzer could see the change in his face. His eyes were opened a bit wider, his mouth approaching something closer to a smile. "You know, young man," he said, "I've been thinking about abandoning this cottage for some sturdier shelter."

Setzer blinked in surprise at the apparent change of subject. "On this island? Where would you find it?"

"The mountains. There are quite a few caves there, or so the other survivors told me, a year ago. They'd be a less tempting target than a cottage sitting in the middle of a deserted island, don't you think?"

"Yes," he answered, smiling slowly as the realization hit him. "I think that you've hit the nail on the head."

"Well, I _was_ once called the greatest genius in the world," he said. But then he shook his head. "Unfortunately, I wouldn't know the first damned thing about making sure that they are stable. Do you know anything about that?"

"I wouldn't personally, but maybe I can find a friend of a friend to help us. Let me try to make some arrangements."

Cid offered his gloved hand to him. "You're a good man," he said, and smiled, and this time it reached his entire face. "Thank you."

Setzer pushed himself away from the wall and shook the proffered hand. "No," he said. "Thank you. Now, if you'll forgive me, I'm going to find Celes." 

"You're sure you don't want to just wait here? She used to get a bit testy when she was followed too soon, in this mood."

"I don't intend to crowd her," he said, as he made his way to the door. "But I can't keep up with her if I don't even try."

\---

He caught up to Celes as she stood in the surf, her cape lying on the beach under a stone. She had one hand on her hip, and was knee-deep in the water and staring down into the murk. He stripped off his own jacket and went to join her without a word.

They stood in silence, barely within arms' reach of each other, as Celes studied the water. A few fish swam around her legs, dazed and sickly and slow, barely reacting as he splashed through the water. THe smell of brackish water and rotten seaweed was overwhelmingly thick as he moved through the grey muck; it was especially stomach-churning after the memory of the delicious roasted meat and sweet black bread they'd had just a few moments before, a feast they'd brought back to share with old Cid. Fortunately, he'd always had a strong stomach. 

Celes glanced back at him, and for a second he expected her to offer him reproach for following her. But instead she just turned back to the water, this time staring down at the fish. "They're worse than they were before," she said. "At least before there were a few healthy ones."

He looked down, not quite sure what to say. As he looked more closely he could see the nasty black spots on their backs, the sunken eyes, the tattered fins. "I suppose we came none too soon, then," he finally answered, since it seemed to him that she was waiting for him. "We'll have to secure some supplies for him."

"We shouldn't be leaving him here at all," she answered back, and now he could hear the anger in her voice. "This is no place for anyone to -" She stopped, and turned enough that Setzer could see her lips pressed together. "To live alone," she finished, at last.

He could guess easily enough what she was going to say, however. "No one else is going to die here, Celes."

"He has no food," she said flatly. "No water. And you saw him - even if we bring him supplies, we can't be sure -"

"No," he said. "He's going to be all right. I spoke with him after you left."

She looked him in the face. The hope in her eyes was bright, overpowering, and he could feel himself struck by it all over again. "You mean you convinced him to leave with us?"

He took a deep breath. "He's not ready, Celes. Not like I was when you found me. But... I think that I convinced him that there's still something out there for him, when all of this is done. That there's something beyond this place. It was enough to convince him to accept our offer of supplies, and to seek a safer shelter in the mountains when we're able to find a few engineers to help him."

And that was enough. The light faded, but it did not die. She stood there, looking him in the eyes, her fists clenched - and he could see it, could see the tension and the fear that had been haunting her ever since they had come to this place. It started to melt away, and as she stood there he abruptly realized that her back had been almost imperceptibly bent, her shoulders ever-so-slightly slumped... and now they were not. It was her, again, the same woman who had come to him and told him that they had to go, they had to fight in order to find a new dream, and that she wanted him to come with her.

If they had been in a different sort of world - like the world he'd inhabited with Maria, so long ago - he would have reached for her and pulled her close for a kiss. But in this broken place, just seeing her stand tall again was enough. She was strong and lovely, like the woman who had come to him in Kohlingen and finally made him see that there was still hope. 

"Thank you," she said, and he could hear the sincerity in it, the knowledge that it came from the heart.

"You're welcome," he said, unable to find it in him to make any clever remarks. It was dizzying, the realization that he had just done for her what she had done for him, those few weeks ago. "Should we go back to say goodbye, do you think?"

"I suppose," she said. "We'll have to ask what sorts of supplies he'll need -"

She stopped abruptly enough that Setzer, who was half-turned back to the shore, froze, his hand immediately going to the the pocket where he kept Daryl's old darts. "What is it?" he asked, softly.

"Wait a minute." She held up one hand, peering down at the water intently. "There's something here." Then she knelt and reached into the water. The fish next to her finally reacted, shying away, but she ignored them and reached into the murky sand. Finally she pulled something out - and then Setzer could feel it as well, the pulse of magic that emanated from the greenish fragment of stone. It throbbed with a cool blue light, like the color of the old world's sky. 

"You're more perceptive than I am," Setzer said, looking at the magicite curiously. "I felt nothing at all."

"You weren't raised with magic," she said, furrowing her brow. "But I've been here so many times, and I never felt it before." 

She was silent for a moment, eyes closed. The magicite pulsed with light, and he felt... a wind. He smelled fresh air, blowing away the stench of the ocean, and for a moment his vision was filled with the pure blue of the old midday sky. It was so beautiful, the sky as he'd seen it a year ago, flying free in the wind. No boundaries, only the boundless possibilities of the open air in front of him. Life on wings, in a careless time -

Celes took a deep breath, and he knew then that she'd felt it too. Her blue eyes fluttered open and closed. "I think," she finally said, "that he was the one who sensed you." She held out her cupped hands. "Here."

"Celes," he said, still dazzled by the flash of blue. Were there tears in his eyes, or was it only the ocean spray? "I'm not sure -"

She smiled thinly. "I am. I'm certain. I think you would understand better than any of us. 

Yes, it was almost certainly the ocean spray, he thought, looking at her face. "Very well. I accept this gift, my dear," he said, and bowed slightly as he took the magicite.

"Don't fool around." Her voice was not nearly so cutting as usual, and she was still more relaxed than she'd been since they'd set foot on this island. "Come on. Let's go."

He waited for her to walk out of the ocean before following suit himself, and when she walked past her cape without touching it, he did the same. He'd keep up with her. If that was the best he could do to show his affection until the world changed to something gentler, then that was what he would do. He owed her far more than that. So he followed her back to the shack, hope pulsing in his veins like the memory of the blue sky.


End file.
